Comebacking Cupid's Heart runs well fresh
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Cupid’s Heart will launch her 4-year-old season in Friday’s eighth race at Belmont Park and brings a proven pattern of success off the bench into the first-level allowance for fillies and mares.
A field of seven has been entered in the 6 1/2-furlong sprint, including Amaretti, who is a half-sister to Grade 2 winner Caramel Swirl.
Cupid’s Heart will be making her first start since November when she breaks from post 7 under Kentucky Derby-winning rider Javier Castellano.
“We gave her the winter off,” trainer Bruce Levine said. “She’s training really nice. I can’t wait to run her.
“She’s good, fresh. She won first time out and then won off the layup last year at Saratoga.”
Levine, himself, wins at a 36 percent clip with horses returning from layoffs of more than 180 days, according to Daily Racing Form statistics. He trains Cupid’s Heart for Flying P Stable and R. A. Hill Stable. The daughter of Cupid is 3 for 5.
“She has talent,” Levine said.
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Cupid’s Heart began her career with a 4 1/4-length win in a maiden special weight sprint in October 2021 at Belmont Park. Her other wins have come in first- and second-level allowance sprints for New York-breds, one at Saratoga last September and the other at the Belmont at Aqueduct meet in October. In the latter race, Cupid’s Heart earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 89, which is the best career number in Friday’s field.
She’s raced once since, finishing third in a first-level allowance Nov. 25 at Aqueduct.
“We tried her at a mile,” Levine said. “Maybe she didn’t want to go that far.”
The race has since produced two next-out winners, led by runner-up Spiked. She came back to win a first-level allowance at Aqueduct.
Cupid’s Heart has natural speed and could get an ideal trip just off some of the runners drawn inside of her, like Amaretti and Royal Poppy.
“She kind of likes to stalk,” Levine said. “She got a really good post.”
Levine said Cupid’s Heart could develop into a candidate for the $125,000 Union Avenue, a six-furlong race for fillies and mares bred in New York. It will be run Aug. 11 at Saratoga.
Amaretti’s half-sister, Caramel Swirl, is a two-time graded winner at sprint distances – the Raven Run at Keeneland and the Vagrancy at Belmont. The siblings share the same connections in breeder and owner Godolophin, trainer Bill Mott, and jockey Junior Alvarado.
Amaretti was a maiden special weight winner in her second career start April 12 at Keeneland. She’s raced once since, finishing fourth in a first-level allowance May 20 at Belmont. The start was her first on a wet track. She will break from the rail Friday.
Royal Poppy, who was second in the same May race as Amaretti, will start from post 6.
Khali Magic, who is moving back to dirt, the surface of her last win, is the field’s winningest horse with five victories.
Adeliese’s Smile is a daughter of Academic, the Woodbine Oaks winner in 2015 who went on to defeat males in both the Grade 3 Canadian Derby and Grade 3 British Columbia Derby.
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